The relationship between higher education and employment is, throughout both post-industrial and emerging economies, a central policy issue that directly affects labour market development and access to opportunity. It is consequently an area of study that has attracted the interest of theorists and researchers in most disciplinary areas of scholarship, and a wide range of academic activity is being undertaken that is directly or indirectly focused on the implications of higher education expansion and the development of associated skills and knowledge.

To engage more effectively with colleagues who have research and/or policy interests in the relationship between higher education, labour market and employment change, we are organising a series of seminar/workshops. We hope that the presentations will attract a diverse range of researchers and other experts on labour market change and facilitate interdisciplinary sharing of research findings and ideas.

The first of these will be held Wednesday 7th December 2011, with two papers:

i) Dr. Hans Dietrich, a quantitative sociologist from the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung in Nürnberg, Germany will outline findings from his research in Germany on The Effects of tuition fees and socioeconomic background on higher education decisions, presenting evidence from analysis of the impact of an inadvertent ‘natural experiment’, where tuition fees were introduced at some Germany universities and earlier than at others.
ii) Robert Wright, Professor of Economics at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, will present a paper entitled Chasing graduate Jobs? which reports on his analysis of HESA records of higher education student participation and graduate destination data from six cohorts, in order to explore the interaction between ‘over-education’, under-employment, and on the migration patterns of graduates of UK Higher Education Institutions.

The Graduate Labour Market Research Programme is coordinated by Professors Kate Purcell and Peter Elias. If you would like to join the mailing list to keep up to date on activities and events in this area, please contact Jane Snape.